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Storm Area 51 Craziness

Storm Area 51 CrazinessFor many years UFO and alien proponents have maintained that in the government is hiding aliens from outer space at a U.S. Air Force Testing Range in a remote area of Nevada. The believers call it “Area 51.” The story goes that there are secret discussions about elaborate plans for our planet. For most people, this is just a big joke, but for many others, this is their religion. It is their hope for getting away from the struggles of life and the violence and sickness around us. An internet meme called “Storm Area 51” has attracted people to come and celebrate the area.

Promoters have planned a three-day September music festival called Alienstock. They expect 10,000 people to come to Lincoln County, Nevada (population 5,200). The Alien Research Center in Hiko, Nevada, (population 110) plans an exposition in September. The internet post is inviting people to run into the trespass into the military’s remote test area. They are hoping for 35,000 to 40,000 people for that. If that happens, a confrontation with the military is possible. There are only 184 hotel rooms in the entire county (over 10,000 square miles), so local officials are concerned about how far local resources will go.

You can laugh off “Storm Area 51” as a crackpot waste of time and money, but it has received wide publicity. The Associated Press ran an article on it on August 21, 2019, and it has been featured on web news outlets. You can be sure that significant numbers of people will be there. Many others who will not go still believe the propaganda barrage that has accompanied it. The old saying “If you don’t believe in SOMETHING you will believe ANYTHING” seems to be in order here.

Let us say once again, that the Bible doesn’t tell us that this is the only place where God has created life. However, there is no evidence of alien visitation or manipulation in the entire history of our planet. Spending money on a PR program like “Storm Area 51” is merely a foolish waste of money which could be used in far better ways.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

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You Are a Spaceship with a Full Crew

You Are a SpaceshipOne of the most interesting sites on the web is the “Astronomy Picture of the Day” produced by NASA. This website features a new picture every day, usually of objects in deep space with an explanation of the image. On August 18, 2019, there was a beautiful artistic rendition of a human with a star-filled background titled “Human as Spaceship.” (Because of copyright we can’t show you the picture, but you can see it HERE.) The opening line of the explanation is, “You are a spaceship soaring through the universe.”

The point of the presentation is that as we soar through the universe, we are not alone. We are the captains of our ships, our human bodies because we are not a singular living organism. There are a massive number of separate organisms that exist inside our bodies that do specific things for us. They help digest food, fight disease and infection, and carry vital materials on a liquid highway (your bloodstream) from one end of your body to the other. These organisms are the crew of this spaceship. They are bacteria, fungi, and archaea, and they actually outnumber your own cells. Science still doesn’t know what many of these organisms do, but they have their own DNA, and together they make up the human microbiome. You are a spaceship with a massive crew.

We sometimes seem to view God’s creation of the human body as a process similar to building a machine. To build a machine you would put together pre-manufactured parts in a prescribed way. To build a working and living human body requires a host of communities which do the jobs they were designed to do in ways that science is just beginning to understand.

David said it best in Psalms 139:14: “I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are your works.”
— John N. Clayton © 2019

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Are Humans Animals?

Are humans animals like bears?People have sometimes called me to task for referring to humans as animals. The point is well taken that humans are unique, but humans are not plants, and they are not minerals. According to all basic elementary science books, there are three kingdoms – plants, animals, and minerals. Are humans animals? Yes, we are animals.

The problem we seem to have is that we don’t understand what makes humans different from bears, for example. In our correspondence courses, we have questions about what distinguishes a human from other forms of animal life. I find it interesting that the answers my students give are so poorly considered. Some will say that we think, but all animals think. Some say we have emotions, but all animals have emotions. Others will say we stand erect, but kangaroos, birds, and bears all stand erect. Still others say it’s our brain size, but whales have bigger brains than we do, and bears have very large brains.

I recently watched a National Geographic program on bears. The program emphasized that female bears in the wild that give birth to unhealthy or significantly deformed cubs will kill and eat them. AOL News on the web (August 18, 2019) carried a story about two Russian fishermen who rescued two bear cubs from drowning. The mother bear was swimming across a lake with two cubs on her back when she became tired and chilled. Her solution was to shake the two cubs off of her back, leaving them to drown while she continued her journey to the other side of the lake. These are behaviors that would be unlikely in a human mother. What is it that makes humans different? Why do human mothers continue to care for children with deformities or severe health issues? Why do human mothers usually show incredible resilience when their child is threatened?

When someone asks, “Are humans animals?” I reply, “Yes, but not JUST animals. Humans are not driven by “survival of the fittest.” There are characteristics of humans that cause us to care for those who are not “fit.” These human qualities also provide for an innate sense of the love of beauty in art or music or in a natural setting. What is it in humans that causes us to worship, to feel guilt, and to be sympathetic. What causes us to be driven by an “agape” type of love – self-sacrificing, nonsexual, and unrelated to our survival?

It isn’t any physical characteristic that makes humans special. Our spiritual makeup is the source of all those things that set humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. We are created in the image of God. That isn’t just an empty cliché. It is an observable difference between humans and the animal world around us. We can behave like bears if we choose, but bears cannot behave as humans.

Are humans animals? Yes, but not JUST animals. The word the Bible uses to describe the distinctive characteristic of humans is “soul.” It’s the part of us that never dies, and it separates us from all other forms of life.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

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Entrapped for His Faith

Entrapped for His FaithWe have previously mentioned Christian business owners who have been sued for refusing to do something that violated their Christian faith. One of the individuals we mentioned before is Jack Phillips who owns a business called “Masterpiece Cakeshop” in Colorado. Because some people didn’t respect his religious beliefs, they set up a plan so he would be entrapped for his faith.

The big issue here is whether a business owner has the right to refuse goods or services that violates that owners religious convictions. That battle is going on in the courts in various cases. When Mr. Phillps declined to design a cake for a same-sex wedding, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission prosecuted him, and the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mr. Phillips won against the Colorado Civil Rights Commission in the Supreme Court. Then someone set up a plan for Phillips to be entrapped for his faith. An attorney called Masterpiece Cakeshop and requested a cake that would be blue on the outside and pink on the inside to celebrate a gender transition. Mr. Phillips believes that God created us male and female and that humans have no right to change the way God created us. He declined to make the cake. The attorney then filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and the Colorado government began to prosecute Mr. Phillips again.

It turns out that the attorney was not celebrating a gender transition. The request was an attempt to set Mr. Phillips up to be entrapped for his faith and dragged into court again. The question is whether individual freedom still exists in the United States. Can a person freely follow their faith and allow it to influence what they do professionally?

The information on this case comes from a legal organization called Alliance Defending Freedom in their August 2019, bulletin. More and more, Christians are being attacked for their faith both in the physical world and in the legal world. Thankfully the attacks cannot be made in the spiritual world in which we function.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

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Inconsistency of Abortion Issues

Inconsistency of Abortion IssuesThere are so many problems with the inconsistency of abortion issues in America that it’s hard to know where to start. Where does a woman’s right concerning her body stop and where do the baby’s rights begin? When is abortion infanticide? When is it murder to kill a baby?

On August 2, 2019, a 29-year-old woman in Anderson, Indiana, was shot in the head by her boyfriend. She was 21 weeks pregnant, and her twins died before she did. The boyfriend has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend, and two counts of murder and feticide for killing the twins. The dictionary defines feticide as the destroying of a fetus or the causing of an abortion. In Indiana knowingly or intentionally killing a fetus in any developmental stage is murder. As we pointed out in our earlier post, in some states, a baby can be put to death at the time of birth.

The inconsistency of abortion issues is very obvious. It is compounded by the refusal to deal with the evidence and the facts of conception and birth. You cannot defend the position that the fetus is an extension of the mother’s body. Morning sickness is because the woman’s body knows that the baby is a foreign entity.

When the sperm meets the egg, an individual is formed with a unique genome. Before birth, the unborn child is aware of much of what is going on in the world outside the mother’s body. There are other options available to a woman who has a baby inside her that she doesn’t want to raise. As the father of three adopted children, I know the joy that any child can bring to those couples who want to be parents but are unable to do so for medical reasons.

The emotional, mental, and physical cost of infanticide and abortion is enormous at the time of pregnancy and in the future for all individuals involved. Following God’s Word in marriage, sex, and family would solve the inconsistency of abortion issues. When we fail to follow God’s instructions, compounding the damage by a violent, destructive solution is not wise.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

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Religion Is a Way to Make Money

Religion Is a Way to Make MoneyI Timothy 6:4-5 “He has an elevated opinion of himself, being without knowledge, but dotes on an unhealthy love of questionings and war of words which leads only to envy, division, insults, insinuations and wranglings of men corrupted in mind and destitute of truth who think religion is a way to make money.”

The above description could be a description of some atheists I know. It also could be describing some religious figures who claim to be Christians. I think every lectureship I have ever done contained a person who dominated the question/answer session and attempted to impugn my motives. Atheists tend to believe that all religious speakers are hypocrites just in it for the money. Religious figures have desired to take over our ministry and link it to theirs so they could increase their income. Others seemed to believe that our outreach was taking paying contacts away from them.

This is not a new issue. The Bible has many accounts of this same kind of attitude. Acts 8 tells about a man named Simon who believed that religion is a way to make money. He had used sorcery “and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that he was a great one” (Verse 9). When he saw the power of the apostles, he tried to buy it (verses 18-19). Peter told him, “Your money will perish with you because you have thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.” Acts 19:13-14 tells a fascinating story of the seven sons of Sceva who are called “vagabond Jewish exorcists.” They had a colossal failure when they tried to merchandise the religious tools of the apostles to help people who had serious problems.

There are con artists today who believe religion is a way to make money. I don’t know of any human enterprise where greed is not involved, including atheist and skeptic projects. However, for every religious con artist out there, there are hundreds of people who do their ministry with no pay at all. No one gets rich in running a food pantry or a day-care center or a prison ministry. For every TV evangelist making money, there are dozens of people supporting themselves with a secular job while using their resources to do what God has called them to do.

The passage in 1 Timothy 6 cited earlier ends with Paul saying: “Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And if we have food and shelter, let us be content with that. But they that want to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil: which some have coveted, erring from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (Verses 6-10).

Just for the record – your author does not receive a salary from this ministry and supports himself with his 41 years of teaching science in the South Bend Community Schools Corporation.

— John N. Clayton © 2019

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It IS Worth the Price!

It IS Worth the Price! Timothy Clayton
\We want to continue our thoughts from yesterday’s post. If you haven’t read it yet, you can click HERE. My point was that it IS worth the price to care for those who cannot take care of themselves. The example I used was my son Tim.

Some argue that it is a waste of money. They say that we should euthanize those who have “a low quality of life” or who are in prison for the rest of their lives. As I said before, from a Christian standpoint, that idea is repugnant. Christians do not view a human as “just another animal.” We believe that ALL humans are created in the image of God, and every life is infinitely valuable.

To add to the points we made yesterday, here are three more objections to the view of the euthanasia advocates:

1) All human lives can be productive. This is truer today in our world of technology than it ever was. Stephen Hawking did much of his work after he was unable to function physically. My son works in a shop that does jobs that require massive human time. Selecting phone parts and putting one of each in a cloth bag may not be a career you want to have, but Tim and his friends at the sheltered workshop thrive on it. Prisoners can train and rehabilitate dogs, cultivate the land and produce crops, do precision manual work, and write and compose amazing stories, music, and art. Prisons can be productive places with decent living conditions, and they can even be self-supporting. No human is worthless except those who choose to be.

2) No human is beyond the reach of the Holy Spirit. Our prison ministry has dealt with some hardened criminals who grew up in an environment that made them that way. Can they be changed? The answer is yes, and there are hundreds of cases to prove that. There is a book titled “The Meanest Man in Texas” that you might wish to read for an example. It is worth the price when you see people transformed by the Spirit.

God’s Spirit can help to change a man or woman who seems to be hopeless. My own personal story of “Why I Left Atheism” is available on doesgodexist.org if you want a personal example. Christians never give up on a man or woman. Euthanizing prisoners who are destined to spend the rest of their lives in prison would cut off what may be a tool to help young people who are headed toward violence and abuse. We worked with “Scared Straight” here in Indiana for several years and saw what can be done by someone “who has been there.”

3) There is a Christian industry built around caring for the disadvantaged. Programs like SSI and Medicare provide some money for those who qualify for their support. The actual care for the disadvantaged doesn’t come from the government. It comes from men and women tho don’t make much money, but who believe that the message of Matthew 25:31-46 applies to them. They serve and bless their constituents, bringing joy and love and happiness as they do so. Their work employs large numbers of men and women who would not otherwise have a job. They train and place disabled people in jobs that match their ability and desire.

Yes, it is worth the price. The bottom line is, what kind of a world to we want to live in and leave to our children and grandchildren? Do we want a world that teaches survival of the fittest and the annihilation of all of those someone deems to be unfit? Or do we want a world of love and gentleness and caring that treats every human with dignity and respect? It seems to me that the answer to this question is obvious. And it is worth the price.
–= John N. Clayton © 2019

To obtain John’s book about Timothy, click HERE.

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Is It Worth the Price?

Is It Worth the Price? Yes, Timothy is worth it.
Every Wednesday morning I take my son Tim, who is 57 years old, out for breakfast. Tim is mentally challenged, blind, and has a mild form of muscular dystrophy. He also has cerebral palsy and schizophrenia. All of this has left him wheelchair-bound and with trembles that affect his ability to hold a cup to drink. Various government programs for the disabled have supported Tim since he became of school age. Some people have told me they resent their tax money being used to prolong my son’s suffering. I regularly receive brochures from pro-euthanasia groups promoting legislation that would terminate those who have “a low quality of life.” That brings up the question, “Is it worth the price?”

I suspect that we could reduce the massive amount of government deficit spending if we euthanized everyone in a mental hospital or care facility. We could expand that to include any prisoner who will always be incarcerated. We could also add anyone who is in a vegetative state due to brain injuries or congenital problems caused by disease, injury, stroke, or inadequate care. From an atheistic standpoint, the euthanizing of all of these individuals makes sense. Putting human life on the same level as animal life would allow involuntary euthanasia. The champion of this kind of thinking is Australian Dr. Peter Singer. He is the Ira W. Decamp Professor of bioethics at Princeton University. He is also the Australian Laureate Professor of Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne.

From a Christian standpoint, these proposals are repugnant. To be clear, we are not talking about allowing a dying person to refuse a life support machine with no hope of ever being free of the machine. Christians do not view a human as “just another animal.” The Christian view is that ALL humans are created in the image of God. That means they have a spiritual makeup which is unique to humans. Christians reject the view that a human, a dog, and a pig are of equal value.

But is it worth the price of caring for those whom Singer and others would eliminate? There are a large number of objections to the views of the euthanasia advocates. Here are a few:

1) The handicapped historically have made significant contributions to all disciples of human activity. Would those who promote involuntary euthanasia suggest that Stephen Hawking’s life should have been terminated when he could no longer function without help? How many great musical composers have had major handicaps? Many times a handicap has led to a unique talent that blesses the lives of others.

2) How do you determine a “low quality of life”? My son has many things that bring him joy. He enjoys food and knows about the different foods of various cultures. He gets great pleasure from hearing about various religious beliefs. He enjoys music and loves to feel different textures. He does not agonize over his blindness or complain about not being able to play sports. He looks forward to my daily phone calls and loves eating out. From his perspective, his quality of life is very good.

3) Ignoring the spiritual dimension of life means not understanding what brings joy to many people. Galatians 5:19-25 describes the physical “works of the flesh,” and the “fruit of the Spirit.” The physical things are animal responses that involve the physical body. Verse 22 lists the fruits of the Spirit as “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance..” My son has all of those. Not only does he have them, but he brings them into the lives of others.

The bottom line is, what kind of a world do we want to live in and leave to our children and grandchildren? Should it be a world that teaches survival of the fittest and the annihilation anyone that some person or group of people decides are not fit? Or should it be a world of love and gentleness and caring that treats every human with dignity and respect? It seems to me that the answer to this question is obvious. Is it worth the price? You bet it is! More on this tomorrow.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

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Keeping Balance in Nature

Keeping Balance in Nature with BearsAmong the design features built into the creation is that of avoiding over-eating of plants by herbivores or over predation of herbivores by carnivores. Sometimes there are surprising ways of keeping balance in nature.

Did you know, for example, that bears help control the production of caterpillars? A January 29, 2019, posting by Yellowstone National Park staff reports that Yellowstone bears in August eat an astonishing 40,000 moths a day. The moths are migrating from grasslands over the mountains in Yellowstone, and they are actually above timberline. This allows the bears to climb up and get easy nutrition as they prepare for hibernation in the coming winter. From an ecological standpoint, it limits how many caterpillars are produced, preserving plants for many animals in nearby grasslands.

One of the things science continues to learn about is how many factors are involved in keeping the balance of any ecosystem. The design of all ecosystems is so complex that knowing how many checks and balances are required is almost impossible.

Frequently humans have upset the balance God built into the creation with catastrophic results. The problem of controlling insect swarms is as old as recorded human history. Who would have thought that bears above the timberline in Yellowstone National Park would make a massive contribution to the ecology of nearby grasslands? Keeping balance in Nature requires intelligent planning and design.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

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Virtual Church and Real Church

Virtual Church or Real ChurchToday we have a choice between virtual church and real church. D.J.Soto quit his job at a megachurch in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 2016 to start a virtual congregation, a “fully computer-generated religious institution.” Members of Soto’s church use virtual reality headsets and tap into Altspace VR’s social media platform that provides digital meeting spaces for avatars. The worship service includes a lecture with computer-driven graphics and pictures. The Easter service included walking into Jesus’ tomb and taking a tour of the cross. There is even a baptismal service in which avatars, which are icons that represent people, are baptized.

Other ministers are using variants of Soto’s methods. Jay Kranda of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, uses livestream services and apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook. Some of the people using these electronic church services call themselves “bedside Baptists” and “pillow Presbyterians.” Churchhome Global is another electronic church with Judah and Chelsea Smith using prayer emojis to engage congregational members.

For those whose concept of a worship service is to be a spectator with only a minimal personal involvement, virtual churche may be attractive. Not getting out of the house on Sunday is attractive, especially in bad weather. The problem with all of this, however, is that it misses the purpose of worship.

The biblical concept of the Church has never been that people come as spectators. Worship is not just one dimensional. We praise God and encourage one another. The communion we share is not only vertical as we thank God for the sacrifice of Christ and the cleansing nature of His blood. It’s also horizontal as we share our unity and love for one another as we participate together. The Church is not a social club. It is a gathering of people who share their resources, their lives, and their desire to serve. When you read Acts 2:41-47, you see activities that are not to entertain, but to serve people and God.

The virtual church may enable people to escape the problems of American denominational worship. However, it doesn’t begin to approach the biblical concept of the purpose and conduct of worship and living out the faith together. See James 1:27 and 5:13-20.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

Data from USA TODAY, May 7, 2019, page 1B.